Sisters Hike to High Creek Lake

Another thing on Megan's list-of-things-to-do-while-in-Utah was to hike to High Creek Lake.  She invited me and Heather to join her and I'm so glad it worked out that we could do it.  I was nervous, I'll admit, because it was long and uphill and I haven't done more than a tyke hike in a really long time.  But I made it!  My toes and balls of my feet were SORE by the end of the almost 12 miles (if you go by my fitbit tracker opposed to Heather's closer to 11 miles on her GPS app), but that and some minor quad soreness was all I had.  I was so happy!  It was a marvelous day in the mountains with these sisters.  I don't think we've ever hiked in this combination before.  Mugs and I used to hike a lot while Heather was on her mission.  And Heather and Mugs used to hike together before she moved to Ohio.  So it was fun to have this time just the three of us.

Starting out at 8:23 am.

Lots of river crossings, but thankfully they all
had "somewhat sturdy log bridges".  This one
was definitely the sketchiest, but we all made it
just fine.

We're all thankful for the handrails!

We named this one the "two logger".

The light was was pretty on the aspens behind
Meg.

I couldn't believe the paintbrush!  They were magnificent
the whole way!

Hiking in a mountain wonderland.

We made it to the meadow and it was absolutely stunning!

Group shot attempts = butt shots.

Butt shots for everyone.

Finally worked!  (The sensor in the remote
doesn't work through bodies, it turns out. ;)

Can you even with those larkspur?!

Gorgeous!

I spy some snow on the mountains yonder.

This is looking back from where we came.

Getting steep!

Higher and higher.

Bonus waterfall!

"We'll pop through those trees and the lake will be right there!"

False.  Spoiler alert: this is not the lake.

We kept climbing and climbing and came to
these rocky cliffs with lots of columbines!

Amazing!

Seriously - paintbrush everywhere!  I was in
heaven!

There's the trail we came up on.

I thought that rock slide was and over the trail,
but then we got close and realized the trail went
around it.   And there were plants growing
in the middle of the rocks.  Must have been there
for a long while.

I spy some fireweed!

And the lake!  At last!  We were so happy to see this sight at
12:34 pm.

That tree and rock ahead made a perfect picnic spot.

Lunch selfie!

Sisters!  (And oh, yes, I was rocking the hiking outfit today! HA!)

Heather took this one - I love the flowers in the foreground.

Oh, thank you, Heather for taking a close up of them, too!  :)

Angelic sisters.

Cute sisters.  Not cute sludge on the lake.
Ew.

Orange paintbrush!

Looking down into the valley from almost
9000 feet.  (We started at ~6000.)

One more group shot of the with the valley behind (and our
terrible hat hair!).

These beauties were almost magenta.

Down, down, down we go, back to that beaver
pond where we took a group shot this morning.

Didn't notice this lovely cascade as we crossed
the river the first time.  Glad I looked up on the
way back!

Final hike stats, thanks to Fitbit.

No wonder I was pooped!